Oh, The Places We'll Go
by Ianuaria
Summary: "I love your children." Cristina said to Meredith. What if she had to step up and make good on her promise as godmother? Featuring the adventures of of Zola, Bailey, and their Aunt Cristina.
1. Chapter 1

**_A new story! I promise I'm not abandoning my WIPs, though. This is just an idea I had and I absolutely had to try it._**

* * *

 _"Of course I'd take Zola and fetus."_

* * *

She has an MD and a PhD. She is an unparalleled cardiothoracic surgeon of international renown. She is the head of the premier research institute for cardiac science in perhaps the entire world.

She leads a staff of nearly fifteen hundred, she makes a disgusting amount of money each year.

She has a lover she sees infrequently and a lavishly decorated apartment she sees even less often.

She spends, on average, fifteen hours a day at the hospital.

Two weeks out of every six abroad, teaching, fundraising, networking.

She has allotted herself two weeks of paid vacation each year, and has so far taken none.

She has three shelves of trophies, a closet full of names, walls hung with more names. She has been published in all the acclaimed journals, she has eighty patents to her name, she has people clamoring for her time day and night. She wakes at four and operates at six. She sleeps three hours a night, if that; she recently fired her eighth cook in as many months because there's no point because she's never home in time to eat.

There is a pile of dirty underwear in her sink and mail stacked on her polished dining table. There are a few boxes still unpacked from her move from the States. The kitchen - Japanese appliances, Italian marble, German engineered - contains three bottles of tequila, forty year old scotch from a patient, vintage wine also from patients, a box of bran flakes. Salt, lime, and a linty block of cheese she vaguely remembers buying several months ago.

She does, however, have valances. She learns from her mistakes.

"Of course I'll take them." she says into the phone, sleep thickening her voice to a rasp. "I'll be there."

.

It's cold. She remembers Seattle as mercilessly rainy, but Zurich is cold in December. She wakes a half hour later to snow drifting against her windowpanes, frosting the glass. Her breath spirals into fluffy clouds when she sticks her head out, and flakes melt in her hair.

She has the spare bedroom, of course, and a hastily appropriated housekeeper from her neighbor. Groceries and other trivialities will have to wait.

She calls Ross, makes sure he has everything under control and will not burn her hospital to the ground. She call him again, just to hammer it in. The third time, he lets her go to voicemail.

She has no idea if she needs a car seat. Actually, she has no idea if she has gas. She has a driver now, doesn't have to do menial things like fill up the tank, but she didn't think it was appropriate for them to see her like that. First impressions matter.

It turns out she needs gas, but she's halfway to the airport before she realises this and then has to dig out her dying phone to locate a petrol pump. This wastes twenty minutes, and she has to run to the terminal. This means she can't stop for the latte she likes from her usual airport cart, and is consequently crabby when she discovers the flight is late.

.

She thinks its funny. In a morbid, dark way, but they did call themselves the twisted sisters. Back when they were naive enough to think that all the bad things that were going to happen had already happened and that someday nothing more would go wrong.

Drowning, gunman, shooting, plane crash, traumatic birth. She ticks off the things that could not kill Meredith Grey, the things they laughed about in hindsight, the things that they thought were enough suffering for one lifetime. Surely, it should have insured her against all other harm. There's only so much crap one person can take.

Right?

There were no details for her on the phone, just the knowledge that Meredith, in her classic Meredith way, did not alter her will.

Lexie being conveniently dead as a dodo, there are no prizes for guessing who steps up now.

.

She imagined just the children. Which is stupid, because they're six and four. She remembers nothing about being that age, except that it was boring, but she's pretty sure no one would have let her travel alone.

But she really didn't imagine their escort would be Evil Spawn.

"You could look happier." Alex grunts, hefting Bailey on his hip. The last she saw of baby Bailey, he was a little kewpie of a thing, sucking his fists and shitting in diapers.

"I'm so sorry." she says. Reflexively, because she doesn't know yet how it happened, and maybe a little grudgingly, because she is angry at Meredith for not being resilient enough to survive one more tragedy.

"I should say that to you, you two were closer." he mutters, then uses his free hand to squeeze the breath from her. "Last two standing."

"Huh?"

"You and me." he says. "Just the two of us left, out of five. Who would've thought, eh?"

She chuckles dryly, then falls silent. She always thought it would be her and Mer. That they would be the ones to stick it out, that they would not crumble or wash out or give up.

"There's my girl." she beams when Zola shuffles up behimd Alex, clutching a jacket in one fist and the other tucked in the pocket if her dress. She wipes the grin off, realising it must look manic, tries to replace it with a sympathetic smile, then gives up when Zola stares at her feet with laserlike focus. "Hi, Zozo. Do you remember me?"

"We...she isn't speaking." Alex says quietly. "Not much, anyway, Wyatt says it's shock. She'll come around. She used to think you were the shit, remember?"

"I hope she still does." she mutters, surveying her ragtag troops. "Okay, let's get this show on the road."

.

"Jesus, Yang." Alex mutters. "You haven't evolved. At all." He kicks a damp rain slicker out of his way, frowning at the damp stain it has left on the hardwood.

"I have a housekeeper." she whispers, trying not to wake Bailey, who she is now carrying because his sister fell asleep in the car and there's no way she can hold Zola without throwing her back out. "She'll come in the morning."

"So you're rich and filthy instead of poor and sloppy. Same difference."

"Are you going to be like this forever?" she demands.

"Three days and I'm out of your hair."

"What?"

"I have a job." he says, looking guilty. "I've already been out since the...since they - since it happened. Packing their things, stuff like that. The funeral. Gotta get back."

"You should have called. I wanted to be there, Alex. My best friend -"

"It happened right after." he explains. "The next day, closed casket, they didn't want to ... wait."

"Oh. My god."

"Yup." he says, staring around at the apartment. "We should get them to bed. It's been a long day."

* * *

 ** _It's a little sad, but I always wondered what it would be like if Cristina were to actually end up with the kids, like they had originally planned. MerDer talk about altering their will after Lexie dies in the crash, and Cristina admits she'd rather be the cool aunt than a full time mom, but then Meredith rejects each of Derek's sisters in turn and we never get to see what decision they made._**

 ** _I'll mostly be skipping ahead a few years in each chapter, and it'll be a short story._**

 ** _Please review, and let me know what you think!_**


	2. Chapter 2

_**Thank you all so much for the response to the first chapter!**_

* * *

She's used to running trials, experiments, hours of careful tinkering and adjusting, monitoring, working with precision. She can command an OR with ease. She leads her hospital with a iron fist.

None of this matters. None of this is absolutely any use at all to her right now, she realises, kneeling on the bathroom floor mopping up a puddle of urine.

Bailey leans against the vanity, fingers stuffed in his mouth, dull eyed and silent. He tugged insistently at her sleeve just as she went to sleep, and she guessed he had to pee. She didn't guess he would choose to do it a foot away from the actual toilet.

"It's okay." she says to him, hoping she sounds genuine. "Just an accident. It happens, sometimes. Hey, you know what - your mom, she puked in front of a bunch of doctors in the hospital once. That's right, just ... all over the floor." She looks up at the child. He looks back, as much expression in his face as the sponge in her hand.

"Alex!" she bellows. She woke to Bailey tuggimg on her shirt and an empty spot where Alex was supposed to be on the couch. She's terrified he might have left, leaving her here with these children who she loves but doesn't know, alone with a lifetime of feeling monstrously inadequate stretching before her.

She's starting to think she might have been a little hard on Meredith, back when the kids were babies and she was cutting back on her clinical hours. This is hard, she knows now, after barely twelve hours. She's babysat Zola before, but always with the knowledge that she could safely plop her in parents arms at the end of the day and be free.

The realisation that she will be solely responsible for the wellbeing of these tiny helpless needy creatures is ...well, it scares her shitless.

And the thought of Meredith makes her eyes sting and her throat ache, a tight burning sensation in her chest. She swallows hard; the boy doesn't need to see her cry.

"Okay, let's get you some pants." she manages, ruffling his fine blond hair. It's sticky. She'll need to wash it. "Into the tub... whee!"

Bailey stares morosely at her as she lifts his shirt over his head, divests him of his soiled pants and fire truck underwear. He seems to like the silky jets of water, though, raising a hand to touch them. She doesn't have any baby shower stuff, so she uses her shampoo on him. He smells like almonds now.

She raises the showerhead to rinse the shampoo from his head, and manages to wash the bubbles straight into his eyes. His lip wobbles, then he swats her hand away and starts to cry, sitting in the bottom of the tub, sobs shaking his small body.

She can't really tell what he's saying, but it sounds a lot like _Mommy,_ and she can feel her own eyes burning as tears trickle down her face.

They don't deserve this, she thinks. They need a mom, someone who can love them and give them the kind of time they need, someone who is nurturing and kind and freaking _motherly._

She got divorced partly because of her inability to conjure up any sort of maternal feeling - for a child that would have been her own. Hers and Owen's, flesh and blood.

These are her best friend's children, she reminds herself. Meredith was the first and perhaps the last person in her life to know her as completely as she did and not hate her for it.

Meredith was her _Person._

She clambers gingerly into the tub, rubbing the child's back. He curls into her instinctively, seeking comfort, and it's easy to let her arms wrap around him, to rock soothingly, words spill from her mouth of their own accord.

"He likes it when you rinse with the cup." Zola says gravely. She's standing quietly in the bathroom door, staring at the two of them. The first words she's spoken since her parents death.

"I'll get a cup." she says, feelimg for some reason like she shouldn't make any sudden movements. Zola looks like a tiny gazelle, one who might bolt at any moment. She doesn't want to risk the progress she's made, so she leaves the kids alone against her better judgement and heads off to find a cup.

She finds a plastic one in the kitchen that looks suitable, then wonders if she'll need anything else.

Should she have had clothes in there before she got him wet? Obviously. God, this is exhausting. She's soaked now too, so she strips off her dripping shirt and treks into the room Alex and Zola shared last night. She unzips the case she knows is Bailey's and grabs something.

She stops short outside the door when she hears a tiny, high pitched giggle.

"More." the little voice says. "More, Zo."

She peeps in to see Zola holding the showerhead high over her brother while he wiggles in delight.

"You wanna get in?" she asks, nervous. Which is ridiculous. Zola contemplates her for a moment, then nods.

She seems able to squirm out of the dress she slept in last night - Alex tried to make her change, but she refused - so she doesn't try to help.

"I can do it." Zola says softly when she tries to run her fingers through the girls tangled curls.

"Does Mer - Mommy do it for you?"

"Yeah."

"Let me help." she suggests.

"Are you our mommy now?" Bailey asks, his voice surprisingly mature. An actual articulate person, instead of a baby.

Zola glares at him from under a curtain of wet hair with the sort of fury only a six year old can manage, so fleeting it's gone the next minute.

"I'm your Aunt Cristina." she says, sluicing water over Zola's sudsy head. "Your mom and I were really good friends."

Silence prevails as she lifts them out of the tub, wraps them in fluffy white towels and sends them into the bedroom. She stares at the pee clothes, curses Meredith, misses her, and decides to leave them for the housekeeper.

In the bedroom, Bailey has dressed himself in jeans and has one arm in his shirt, flapping aimlessly. She helps him, and turns around to find Zola sitting on the floor in her underwear, crying.

The doorbell rings, once, then again, insistently.

Bailey looks at her expectantly.

"Can you get the door for me, Bailey? Can you do that?" The little boy nods, darting off toward the sound of the bell.

She lowers herself to the floor beside Zola, feeling all forty two years in her joints. When Meredith cried, she used to sort of pat her back and mutter stuff until she stopped.

"Zola, what is it?" She reaches out to pull the pink shirt from the girl's hands, and feels her heart crack a little.

 _Daddy's Little Girl,_ it proclaims in looping sequined cursive. She hates the person who designed it, the company who made it, the store that sold it, and whichever one of Zola's parents bought it. Don't these people know that somewhere there are little girls whose Daddy's died in car crashes or in hospital room or fires or a million other ways, little girls who are left to sit alone at Father's Day celebrations in school, take themselves to college, walk themselves down the aisle?

She remembers Derek with Zola, the ridiculous heartwarming pride he took in her, the way he showed her off. Meredith used to say she felt like they ganged up on her, father and daughter. They were a team. She pictures Derek doing her hair, swinging her at the park, sitting in the gallery with her. Stealing down to the daycare at lunch, spoiling his little girl. Zola was a Daddy's girl, all right.

And Bailey... she remembers that Derek used to have to speak to Meredith's burgeoning belly to get their son to stop kicking. His voice was the only thing that calmed the baby down.

Bailey will barely remember his father, or his mother, she thinks. They will always be a vague, foggy silhouette in his mind, warm and loving, but he will never know them. He's so young still, but maybe it's better that way. Zola will remember, and in a way that's more painful.

"You miss your daddy." she says quietly, stroking her damp head. "It's okay to miss him. I still miss mine."

"Where's your dad?" Zola hiccups.

"He died too. In a car crash. I was nine, a little older than you are - and I still miss him, sometimes." She remembers the day, still. She was in back, they were on their way home from the ballet class her mother insisted she take. He bought her a strawberry milkshake to make up for the indignity of ballet class, which she hated. It was a warm day and she remembers feeling full and sleepy, her lips still sticky from the drink. Later, in the hospital, as her mother cried, she would like her dry lips and taste the strawberry. The flavor would make her sick to her stomach for the rest of her life.

Her father was talking about the trip he was going to take her on, the natural history museum, and she was half-dreaming about the dinosaurs when there was this sudden huge noise and she was being slung into the passenger seat, jerked back by the seatbelt.

She remembers unbuckling it, scrambling into the front, or what was left of it, anyway, and screaming for her dad, or what was left of him, anyway. She had to crawl out of the shattered windshield to get to him, lying there on the ground like something from a movie. Blood, everywhere. She never forgot the smell, how warm and sticky it felt. It was all over, but it seemed to be coming from his chest - that hole, she could barely look at it - and when she fell down at school the nurse said to press down on it.

So she did. She put her hands right in there and she felt it, his heart. Like a butterfly, slowing, stuttering. She pressed hard, crying, snot on her cheeks. He touched her face with a wet hand, his face tried to smile. The ground seemed to be glittering - years later, having a nightmare, she would realise it was just the glass from the shattered windshield in the headlights of the car that hit him.

Of course she doesn't tell Zola this. It's a story for another time, when she's older. For now, she knows the pain the child is feeling, and that's enough.

* * *

It turns out that Alex is smart enough to have gone grocery shopping, so they feed the kids cereal and fruit. She makes them coffee, and they take it into the living room where they can keep an eye on the kids picking at their breakfasts.

"I guess you want to know." Alex says grudgingly.

"Whenever you're ready."

He takes a long sip, then clears his throat. When he speaks, it's so low she has to lean in to hear.

They were at a board meeting, hashing over policies, bickering about money, arguing about OR time. It ran late, into the early hours of the morning, but they weren't worried because they'd gotten a nanny. Meredith's concession to having Derek move back to Seattle for good.

Alex had an early surgery, he crashed at the hospital. Meredith and Derek left together. Derek drove, because he always did. She knows it takes twenty minutes at that hour to get from the hospital to their house.

She knows that road, slippery in the rain. No neighbours, no lights in that stretch before the turn off to their house. She knows Derek drives like a maniac. Drove.

She can picture it, the other car, barrelling around the turn as they crept up, the screech of metal on metal, tires spinning, the world flipping over and over and over, the sick splintering of metal on wood. Smoke, tamped down by the eternal rain. Blood on the windows, still dripping into his lap when the paramedics came. They found her fifty feet away, because Meredith Grey lives on the edge and did not buckle her seatbelt that day. Maybe she was sleepy, forgetful.

Either way, they didn't have a chance. Alex was still snoring when the ambulances came in, but there was silence in the ER by the time he got there. It had been barely an hour since they'd left.

"Took them straight to the morgue." he says. "The look on Hunt's face when he had to pronounce them...no one else would but there was nothing we could do. The guys on the rig knew, everyone knew, but Torres just kept screaming, going at it like crazy, Robbins was crying. Everyone was goddamn crying and Callie just kept shrieking at us to do something, help her, until Owen shoved the monitors in her face."

She can see it in her mind; Owen, seasoned by years in the war. He would have known when he saw them. Richard, Bailey, Arizona, the stunned faces of the ER staff, the paramedics, they must all have sensed the futility of it. Callie, never one to give up, fighting till the end. Alex, alone, watching his closest friend die.

"Shepherd's mom came." Alex says heavily. "They had the funeral right after, the bodies were...damaged, you know how it is. I called you -"

"I was in Geneva."

"One of his sisters didn't make it in on time, but they went ahead anyway. I guess it was better, for the kids? I don't know. The lawyer read the will after, it named Lexie. And you."

"I know. She told me, once. She said she would change it."

"Are you saying -"

"No, no." she waves him off. "I want to do this, _Mer_ wanted this. But...it's me, Alex. They need a mom, and I'm ... me."

"They'll toughen up."

"Alex."

"They're great kids. You'll learn. And you have me. Call me, Yang."

"There's stuff to get through in Seattle." he says, avoiding her gaze. "The house. His sisters are there, packing, we'll ship it over. There's stuff about the money in the will, you're supposed to get your lawyer to talk to theirs. It's a lot, enough for college and everything. Shepherd must have been rolling in it. He left the house to Sloan until Zola turns twenty one and we don't know yet how that's supposed to work, there's a trust fund that you're in charge of until they're thirty. Their share in the hospital and places on the board went to Weber and Hunt."

"I live here." she says. "Does that affect anything?"

"I don't think it does." he says, brow wrinkling. "You can have the accounts transferred, and Zola can decide about the house when the time comes."

"Until then?"

"I dunno."

"Derek had family, didn't he, back East? Doesn't family trump godmother?"

"If Mer had given a crap about that, she'd have named one of his sisters." Alex says. "And you're not just their godmother, you're their legal guardian. It was literally in their will, Cristina. They chose you."

She used to think it was just a safety measure. Something to fall back on. A legal guardian was just a designation on paper, a testament to the strength of their friendship that Meredith would want her to raise her children.

She never counted on the fact that Lexie would also be dead when the time came. She planned on being the cool aunt, the one who swoops in and out and can always be counted on for good Christmas presents, crazy vacations and advice about things you wouldn't ask your mom about.

She wonders why Derek never named Mark. If it's the same reason he was averse to naming his actual family. She knows he has bad history in New York, what with Addison and everything, that he never once went back in all these years, but she feels like an interloper.

Derek's mother, she must want to keep her grandkids close after losing her son. Derek's sisters, too. Zola and Bailey have a pile of cousins somewhere, a bunch of Shepherds to play with.

"They should know their family. It's unfair for all of them."

"They can spend summers there, or Christmas," Alex shrugs. "That's for you to decide. I can take them for a while."

"We can't keep shuttling them around the globe."

"Speaking of that, you should probably teach them whatever they speak here.I swear the cashier this morning, she was just spitting and making rattling noises -"

"It's German, you uncultured swine."

"You speak German?" he guffaws.

" _Natürlich, böser laich._ "

* * *

"Uncle Alex, don't go." Bailey sobs, little hands clinging to Alex 's collar.

"Buddy, you'll see me again at Christmas." Alex says, suspiciously red eyed. "I'll take you to build a snowman, and we'll skate and sled -"

"I want to come." Zola begs. "Please can we come?" She glances back at Cristina. "You can stay in Seattle too, Aunt Cristina. You can go to Mommy's hospital."

"I want Mommy!" Bailey bawls.

"She's dead." Zola snaps. "Aunt Cristina, _please_."

"She's. NOT DEAD." Bailey screams, each word exploding from his little body. "Daddy's not dead! They gonna come back, they -"

Alex wraps the child in his arms, turning his own face into the boy's hair. "It's all right, kid. Let it all out."

Zola stares, terrified, at her brother kicking and sobbing, working himself into exhaustion. She drifts closer to Cristina, seeking comfort, then leans away, unsure.

Bailey screams himself into submission, clinging to Alex, tears streaking his red face. She remembers him as a sunny baby, always ready with a smile, a gurgle or a coo, generous with his sloppy kisses and gummy grins. This raging, angry grieving child is an entity she doesn't know how to face.

This is the child she's faced for the last three days. Bailey is too little to know anything except that he hasn't seen his parents for days, that he is living in a strange place with his mother's friend and a nutty woman he doesn't know, that his snall world has basically imploded. He compensates by controlling the things that he can - his bladder, for one. He seems to have lost all his potty training.. He refuses to eat, pushing away absolutely everything she places on his plate, until she was so worried she let him live on chocolate milk and gummy worms. She can just feel Derek cringing.

And Zola... well, Zola just breaks her heart. She's as docile as her brother is difficult, retreating into herself for hours on end, barely speaking. She finds her pillow damp in the mornings; she must cry herself to sleep. She doesn't want to talk to her grandmother on the phone, she doesn't want to eat, or play, or any of the things they suggest to keep her busy.

"But they _are_ dead." Zola whispers. "Aunt April said. She said they went to heaven to be with Jesus. She _said_ it."

"She was right, Zola." she says, as comfortingly as she knows how. She wonders how Meredith would react to this explanation of being dead. She would probably have said it bluntly; she was a great mom, but coddling was never her forte.

"Alex, they're announcing your flight."

Alex rocks Bailey in his arms, saying nothing.

"Alex."

He kneels in response, holding out an arm to fold Zola into his embrace. Zola keeps her grip on her hand, and she's half in the bear hug too.

"Take care of yourself, Yang." he says, kissing her just under her ear.

"Worry about the kids."

"They'll be fine." he grins cheekily. "Because you got this."

* * *

 _ **I really do think Cristina would have been the coolest mother ever. Her kids would definitely become NASA engineers or Supreme Court judges or CEO or kickass surgeons. And they'd have the wildest childhood ever, if not the most conventional one.**_

 _ **Anyway, please review and let me know what you think! Your feedback is always important - it makes me want to update faster!**_


	3. Chapter 3

_**Thanks for the reviews on the last chapter!**_

* * *

She's beginning to think she'd have better luck convincing a atherosclerotic coronary artery to clear up on its own, or climbing Mount Everest, or flying to Mars. It might actually be easier to swim the English Channel, or ski to the North Pole, or bust out a candle and hold a seance to communicate with her dead best friend.

Actually, that last option isn't a bad idea. She could ask Meredith for Tips.

Yes, _Tips_. Like that, with a capital T. Because people keep offerimg them to her, when she hasn't asked. Especially when she hasn't asked.

She feels ...stared at, whenever they're out. She can understand some of the curiosity, with their strange little group of three, not one of them looking like the other. But she feels like public property now. People stopping her in the street to say how darling her little family is. People chatting to her in the store. In the park. In the line for the bathroom, because Bailey has a thing about going whenever he can.

At the school, the other mothers - why is it always mothers? Where are the men? - smile and scoot closer. She thinks Zola is already smarter than all the snot dripping scabby kneed rugrats here. She knows all the organs already, and the major blood vessels. Just yesterday, she watched her first CABG.

"I don't understand what they're saying." Zola whispers, glancing at a group of little girls twittering in the corner. They're dressed in identical uniforms, grey skirts and white blouses, neat blazers, socks and shoes, their hair perfectly plaited under headbands.

"It's German." she says airily. "Not to worry, you'll pick it up."

"I want to go to school." Bailey says, swinging his feet. She had to bring him too, because she hasn't found a nanny yet. It's been a week since Alex left, and she went into the hospital for the first time yesterday. Got some blood on her hands. Felt better.

"We'll find you someplace." she pats his head. "You're too little to go here."

Apparently, informing a child - especially a younger sibling - that they are too little for something is a surefire way to cause a meltdown.

"Bailey." she begs, feeling distinctively idiotic. "Come on, kid. Stop it. I promise we'll find you a school too."

A teacher passing down the hall looks askance at her.

"Bailey." Zola whispers. "This is a girls school. You can't go here, silly. You're a boy."

"Thanks for that, earlier." she says to Zola later, as she's buckling a sleepy Bailey into his seat. "I didn't think he was ever going to stop screaming."

"Mommy always says he's too little to find the right words, so he can't tell us his feelings and it makes him really mad." Zola says. Pauses. "Said. Mommy always said."

"Yeah? Well, your mom was right." she says. "She usually was."

* * *

Zola will start school on Monday, which leaves her the weekend to find Bailey a nanny. Either that, or he's spending the day in the OR with her.

If she makes it in at all. She's tired, so tired. She rarely sleeps at night, and the kids - as much as Zola kept her distance at the beginning and Bailey cried when she picked him up - have started creeping into her bed. She'll wake to a small foot in her face, or Zola crying softly, or Bailey needing a change of pajamas.

She hasn't seen another adult human all week. She fields calls from her colleagues and few friends, speaking only to Ross about the hospital. No one knows she suddenly has two godchildren living with her.

She never realised just how time consuming a child can be. It starts the minute they wake up. Toothpaste has to be squeezed onto brushes, the brushing supervised, wardrobe choices corrected, hair brushed. Breakfast cobbled together, followed as often as not by a change of clothes. Then she has to find something to occupy them, which they tire of in approximately five minutes and they're after her again.

Then it's lunch and maybe Bailey will nap or maybe he won't. They don't like the shows on TV here and she can't figure out the satellite or cable or whatever it is even though she's called the guy three times. Zola likes to draw but she keeps drawing four stick figures standing in front of a house, a boat, a tree, two big and two small, all holding hands with curving crayon grins. Bailey smashes trucks together, his face impassive, then cries, and does it again. Again and again and again until Zola screams for him to stop, her little face like death.

Then dinner, cranky from the lack of naps, refusing to go to bed, waking from bad dreams and thirst and monsters under the bed and in the closet and the goddamn potty, too.

Rinse, repeat.

They generate an inordinate amount of laundry - tiny shirts and socks and pants that have mysterious stains and crap in the pockets. She really can't work out what to do with Zola's hair. Bailey is regaining his potty training, but it's slow going.

Zola seems to understand what has happened, and she seems resigned to living here. Bailey, with his four year old logic, seems to think she is at fault for the fact that his parents have suddenly vanished.

He won't eat, won't sleep, he's cranky and disagreeable, he throws tantrums and screams and runs away from her. Zola seems to be able to calm him, but only some of the time.

She took them to a park; Zola made snow angels and asked if they're like the angels her parents are with, and they both ended up crying on a park bench while Bailey ate fistfuls of snow.

She took them shopping, and Bailey ran after a man who looked like Derek - if you squinted - and grabbed his hand and cried inconsolably when the man turned around.

She reads to them and Zola asks her to make funny voices like Daddy, but she can't get them right and she cries in the bathroom.

She burns toast and reminds herself of Meredith. She realises how much she misses operating and silently thanks Derek for getting her back into the game all those years ago.

It's getting difficult to console the kids when she finds her own eyes blurring with tears every so often. She and Derek were never close; they always seemed to be in some kind of truce, tolerating each other for Meredith's sake.

But then she saved his life, and then he saved hers. She takes out the picture they took that day, of herself holding that great slimy fish and puts it on her fridge. That was a good day, she remembers. That was the day she took her life back, and she has Derek to thank for it.

Meredith is a whole other can of worms. She never wanted to like her, that skinny pale girl with her pedigree and her attitude and her daddy issues she seemed to have no qualms discussing. She was sleeping with an attending - a married attending - and Cristina had no time for that kind of drama.

But she got under her skin. Into her bones, flowing through her veins. She could say the hard, bitter dark truths that she hid from the world right out loud to Meredith, and she wouldn't flinch. Meredith accepted her ruthless ambition and her lack of attachment and her craziness. She will always be the person she calls to drag a corpse across the floor, although that's problematic since she's dead now.

Meredith came close to death plenty of times; they all did, it's not called Seattle Grace Mercy Death for nothing, but Meredith seems to have attracted the highest number of near death experiences.

She was in Geneva when the call came. It was Alex. She was lecturing at a university there, and she had to attend a dinner after. And then she had to catch a flight, then she had to go straight to the hospital for an emergency case. She got home at three in the morning, so she was too tired to call him back. It was all over by then.

She didn't get to say goodbye.

* * *

Zola says she can't cook. It's a fact she's accepted by now, and she's never actually tried. The housekeeper only cleans, doesn't cook. She can't find a nanny.

Well, there are lots - she just doesn't like any.

But it's insulting, coming from a six year old. Zola comes out with it while picking gingerly through a gloppy mess of cheese and noodles on her plate, and she realises maybe Bailey's hunger strike is in retaliation to her cooking.

So she bundles them up in the snow gear they bought and they head off to the bookstore at Zola's suggestion.

"Mommy said if you can read, you can cook." Zola explains. "Except she still messed up sometimes." she adds.

They get a Mexican one, because Bailey likes the bright colors on the cover, and she sneaks a book that says _For Dummies_ into the bag too. She gets Zola a book of fairy tales, and Bailey picks out something with large grinning bandana wearing turtles.

They stop at the grocery store - Alex's provisions ran out this morning - and she's surprised they don't veer into the candy aisle.

"Processed sugar is bad." Bailey says, unexpectedly, looking like his father. "Bad, bad. Makes your teeth fall out, like _this._ " He sucks in his lips, making his sister giggle.

She laughs too, and Bailey lets her lift him into the cart.

* * *

It turns out it's not too bad, cooking. Kind of like a chem lab. She follows the instructions with an exactness that makes Zola roll her eyes, but it turns out good.

They make _sopa de habas_ and _tres leches_ , and Bailey wraps a scarf around himself like the lady on the cover of the book. He eats so much he falls asleep at the table.

Zola says good night to her for the first time, after they've finished reading abiut the Billy Goats Gruff, and gives her a hesitant kiss on the cheek.

* * *

"Don't go." Bailey pleads. "Zozo, no!"

Everyone he knows is gone. His mom and dad, and now his sister is walking away, looking adorable in her little uniform and pink backpack, albeit messy haired.

"She'll be back." she soothes him, treasuring the fact that she is now allowed to hold him. "And then you can play with her."

"Yeah." Zola says. "We'll play hide and seek, Bails. And -"

"And we'll go to the hospital today." she says brightly, selling it like a trip to Disneyland. "You can see a surgery!"

"Don't wanna see a surgery." he whimpers, wiping his nose on her freshly drycleaned silk blouse. Chloé, last season, two hundred dollars. Green streak on the shoulder now. It'll come off, she thinks.

"Wanna go with Zo."

"Should I -" Zola begins nervously.

"Oh, no." she warns. "You have kids to beat. You are going to go in there today and blow all their socks off."

"No, really." she continues. "They'll all be sitting there wiggling their bare toes. They'll all stare, and they'll ask _who is she_? Who's that girl with all the brains?"

"Stop." Zola giggles.

"Stop." Bailey agrees, but he submits to being put in the car.

* * *

She took about five million pictures at home, until Zola exhausted all her loses and groaned, and even Bailey tired of creeping into the frame. She'll keep them for posterity. Someone has to.

She takes a few more now, as Zola gets out of the car, but she puts away the camera when she waves. She turns around and waves, a gesture so sweet she almost can't see to drive.

* * *

"What happened?" she demands.

The daycare is supposed to be good. She gives it a lot of funding.

Apparently Bailey got in a fight with another little boy, over a green crayon.

"It has to be green." Bailey whines. "Or its not right."

"What's not right?" she asks, feeling the eyes on her. Cristina Yang, Director of the Klausmann Institute, childless. Standing in the daycare reasoning with this blond child that no one knows the origins of.

"The fewwy boat!"

"Ferry." she corrects absentmindedly. "Bailey, say sorry. We don't hit."

"No."

"Excuse me?"

" _NO_!"

"Derek Bailey Shepherd, say sorry." she says firmly, trying not to notice how much he looks like Meredith when he's scowling.

"You're not my mommy." he says triumphantly. "I don't have to."

* * *

"Hard day?"

" _Burke_ ?" She nearly chokes on her post-surgery coffee. He does this sometimes, dropping in unannounced. He says he's visiting, but she feels spied on.

"I heard you just came back." he says easily, dropping a bag on her desk. "For you. Chocolate, from Belgium."

"Thanks." she mutters, digging in. "Oh. That's good."

"I hear congratulations are in order." he continues. "That you've...inherited... some children."

"My dead best friend's kids, yes." she says. "No congratulations necessary, Burke."

"Oh." he says, embarrassed. " _Oh._ Your best friend. Meredith? Oh, Cristina -"

"Don't." she orders, stuffing chocolate in her mouth. "Just...don't."

"And Derek -"

She nods, unwrapping another piece.

"I'm so sorry."

"Dr. Yang, someone to see you." her secretary says cheerily, ushering Zola in.

"Zola! Honey, how was school?"

The girl tumbles into her lap, burying her face in her shoulder.

"What happened?"

"They made fun of me." Zola cries. "They pulled my hair."

She remembers those little girls, their sleek plaits and snooty smiles. Oh god.

She looks at the hastily contrived puffs on Zola's head. She's used to dealing with her own curls, but Zola's are a whole other issue.

"Bit...messy." Burke mouths. She glares while soothing Zola as best she can.

"I'll do better tomorrow." she promises. "I'm sorry, kid."

"Do you have a comb?" Burke asks, analysing.

"Preston, you're practically bald." she snorts. "What do you know about hair?"

"I'm Preston, your Aunt Cristina's friend." he says smoothly. "I have daughters. Let's see if I can't outdo your Aunt, eh?"

.

"You pull up?" she asks a while later, hovering. Preston went straight to work with the wide toothed enamel comb she keeps around for emergencies, and Zola is watching in the glass of the painting in front of them, transfixed.

"Yes. Done." he waves the comb triumphantly. Zola runs a hand over it, then turns around and thanks him with an earnestness that makes him smile.

"Ask Letty to take you to your brother." she pats Zola's back. "I'll pick you up by seven."

She nods, hugging her around her midsection before darting away.

"It's tragic." Burke notes, staring at her as she returns to her chair, organising notes for the staff meeting tomorrow.

"Horribly."

"My wife passed. Last year." His eyes are glassy, impenetrable.

"God, Burke." she whispers. "I'm sorry."

"It was time. MS. She went peacefully, she wasn't in any pain. That's good, right?"

"It's all you can ask for, I guess."

"Maybe."

"Come to dinner." he says, intense, explosive. "Tonight."

"Burke..."

"Please, Cristina."

"I have the kids now." she says, gesturing at the door. "They're...they just lost their parents, they've been uprooted and moved to a new country... I want them to feel safe. Stable, you know. No big changes that I can help."

"Of course." he says graciously. "But you aren't saying never."

"I..."

"Cristina."

"No, I'm not saying never."

"Good." he says, his eyes softening like they used to whenever he looked at her. "I'll see you, then."

And then he's gone again.

* * *

 _ **Please review!**_


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